Creating an Effective Data Reporting System for ELLs

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In this excerpt from Assessment and ESL: An Alternative Approach (Portage and Main, 2007), authors Barbara Law and Mary Eckes walk through the process of designing a successful reporting system for English language learners (ELLs).

They explain different steps of the process, including deciding who the audience for different sets of data will be and how the information will be used.

School Study: A New ELL Population

A school in Mindamon, a small, Midwestern town, opened its doors the first day of school to find 103 non-English-speaking students on its doorstep. Over the summer, the local packing plant had recruited overseas and south of the border and had imported a large number of families. Somehow, they had forgotten to inform the schools, and teachers and administrators were left to scramble.

The town had never experienced the challenge of non-English-speaking students before, and the appearance of this crowd sent everyone into a panic. With help from the local university, somehow, students were tested and placed, and gradually the flurry died down. However, no one had any idea what to do about grading and record keeping. It was clear that the old, standard report cards would not work and that student files needed additional information. They decided to investigate additional methods of reporting and began a slow overhaul of their system.

In light of the fact that districts were now required to disaggregate their data — test results needed to be sorted by groups of students: economically disadvantaged; racial and ethnic minorities; those with disabilities; or those with limited English — and that they needed to demonstrate that they were meeting the needs of all students, this was a particularly pressing issue.

Systemizing Information

Reporting-System Objectives

Designing a system for reporting the appropriate information to each stakeholder can be overwhelming from the outset. How do we fashion a system that gives each stakeholder a clear picture of how a student is doing? To begin, a reporting system should:

Recognize, acknowledge, and give credit by differing methods (report cards, grades, and so on) for what students have achieved and experienced in a range of contexts

Increase students' awareness of their strengths and weaknesses, and provide encouragement and opportunities to enhance motivation and personal development

Help schools support the development of students' diverse talents and skills

Provide a summary document of a student's qualities and achievements that can be used by others (Burgess, 1993)

This is a tall order and will not be achieved overnight or without struggle. But we have to begin somewhere. To design a successful reporting system, some key issues must first be resolved.

What information is useful to report to stakeholders?

How will the information be gathered?

How will the information be used?

How will the information be judged?

Steps for Compiling Information

1. Establish your system

For more information on presenting information to the stakeholders, see the rest of Chapter 9 from Assessment and ESL: An Alternative Approach.

Mindamon began by creating a file for each student in which to keep the data the teachers would accumulate. This also got them thinking about the students whose work would fill the folders. At this stage, the folders were not portfolios — selected collections of student work chosen specifically as assessment samples. They were merely files designed to hold relevant information about a student.

2. Decide who the audiences are for the files

The Mindamon school district had to decide who the file was for.

The mainstream teacher, for monitoring progress

The part-time ESL teacher

The administration

Next year's mainstream teacher

The students themselves

The question of accessibility raised other issues.

Who would have access to the file?

At the end of the school year, how much of the contents would stay in the classroom?

How much of the contents would go home with the student?

How much of the contents would remain in the file to follow the student into the next year?

Assessment can be tailored to its stakeholders by recognizing that assessment data serves different audiences with differing agendas. With more specific information available, the stakeholders can make their decisions based on the accumulated data they need: administrators can determine if programs are successful or other forms of support are indicated; teachers can better shape their teaching; parents can gain specific insight into their children's progress as learners; and students can focus on where they have succeeded and what areas need attention.

Mindamon decided to create three subfolders for each student: the mainstream teacher's folder, the ESL teacher's folder, and the cumulative folder. The two teachers' folders — the working folders — represented the first level of work, an ongoing collection of student work. The cumulative folder represented selections from the two working folders.

3. Define the purposes of the student file

It is crucial to shape the data and keep the folder from becoming simply a pile of papers that has no form or meaning to anyone. Its purposes, therefore, must be clearly defined. What best illustrates the type of instruction and learning taking place? You must decide whether anecdotes, writing samples, reading records, checklists, or other methods will best demonstrate competency for a particular audience. This step goes hand-in-hand with defining the audiences. Hebert (2001) writes that in an effort to counterbalance standardized test scores (or even to prove them wrong), teachers often feel compelled to put only a student's best work into his portfolio. This is something you have to decide for yourself: do you include only the best work, work that gives an accurate picture of what a student can accomplish over a range of tasks, or something else? For ESL students, for example, Mindamon teachers felt it was important that data:

demonstrate growth and gains over time

demonstrate mastery of skills and content

provide an authentic and concrete picture of students' capabilities

help students become self-reflective

provide concrete support for bringing about change

shift the focus from negative indicators to those of positive achievement

4. Decide which areas of the quad you will use to show progress and mastery

The Mindamon ESL and classroom teachers had to decide on which areas of the Quad (see image below) to concentrate. They felt it was better to start slowly and build as they got accustomed to this kind of collecting and reporting.

The Quad

Researchers Anthony et al. (1991) developed a complex framework called "The Quad" as a guide for knowing where to look to find answers to that all-important question of how students are doing. This framework encompasses all types of testing in an effort to counterbalance the effects of large-scale, high-stakes tests.

The Quad

Observation of Process

Students immersed in:

Speaking

Listening

Reading

Writing

Observation of Product

Audiotapes

Selected pages from notebooks or journals

Reading logs

Writing folders

Group-work logs

Projects

Learning logs

Homework

Classroom Measures

Text-related activities

Teacher-made tests

Comprehension questions

Decontextualized Measures

Criterion-referenced tests

District exams

Provincial or state exams

Following is a sample table of contents for a complete student file. Choose from this list according to your individual needs, available time, and feasibility. Do not feel obligated to include everything; select what is right for you. You may decide to divide the files according to the Quad: process, product, classroom measures, decontextualized measures (mandated tests and exams). It is important not to become too rigid about what goes into them:

Cover sheet

Contents list

Student personal data/attendance record

Placement records

Assessment of reading comprehension (running records)

List of books read

Student reading and writing surveys

Student work samples

Tests

Standardized test scores

Checklist of skills learned

Student progress reports: objectives taught/met

Areas needing work

Student profiles from previous grades

Dated-entry record of parent contact

Parent-teacher conference reports

Self-evaluation

The teachers at Mindamon chose to include the following in each of the three subfolders:

The mainstream teacher's folder

This included student work done in the mainstream classroom, charting progress in reading, writing, language arts, and in content areas. The elementary and secondary language-arts teachers decided to begin by collecting the following from each student:

A reading log

Four writing samples, one from each quarter of the school year

A running record for reading

A record of student conferences

Benchmarks for the grade level and indicators of which ones had been reached

The ESL teacher's folder

This included student work done during ESL time, charting progress in English proficiency. The file included:

Checklists of vocabulary learned

Writing samples

Work samples from the themes covered

ESL standards checklists and records of which ones had been mastered

The cumulative folder

This folder included the information the school kept in its cumulative record as well as a student portfolio. The latter, assembled at the end of the year by the mainstream and ESL teachers, demonstrated mastery of skills and content, and showed what the student had accomplished during that year so that the next year's teacher knew where to begin. The cumulative folder stayed with the school or was sent with the student if he moved. The cumulative folder included:

Student personal-information records

Home-language survey

Additional assessment reports

Data such as grades

Standardized placement test scores

A student portfolio including

Vocabulary checklist

Narrative reports of semester progress

Reading inventory

Student work samples, including one written sample that included a rough and a final draft

Parent-teacher conference report

5. Decide how each piece of evidence will be used

Evidence in the folder might be used

to retain or pass a student

to assign grades

for reclassifying a student

to show growth

to demonstrate mastery of standards

6. Decide how to present the data

Mindamon teachers knew that data had to be valuable to the stakeholders, so they tried to determine at what point data loses its meaning. They discovered that there are many ways to put collected information into clear and readable form for interested audiences, including through narratives, checklists, portfolios comprised of work samples, student self-evaluations, and so on.

7. Decide how to evaluate folder contents

You need to ask

Has this student met, or made progress toward, his goals?

Does this evidence document that progress?

If not, what clearer or better evidence will document mastery and progress?

Acknowledgements

Our policy section is made possible by a generous grant from the Carnegie Corporation. The statements and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the authors.